


When Putting Yourself In Danger, Don’t Leave Your Students Behind (By Team Kakashi)

by ihopethelightwillshineupon



Category: Naruto
Genre: (tiny warning for blood), BAMF Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto), Blizzards & Snowstorms, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 Bonding (Naruto), Dai-nana-han | Team 7 Fluff (Naruto), Dai-nana-han | Team 7 as Family (Naruto), Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Hatake Kakashi, Hurt Yamato | Tenzou, Hurt/Comfort, Sai's POV, Whump, idk there's just a serious shortage of fics from sai's pov, patching up, the team gets stuck in a snowstorm and some of them are hurt that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:41:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28244082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihopethelightwillshineupon/pseuds/ihopethelightwillshineupon
Summary: When a pursuit mission leads Team Kakashi right into an unexpected snowstorm, the team is forced to split up as Kakashi and Yamato finish the mission by themselves.Yamato returns battered and bruised, and Kakashi returns unconscious – the mission and the cold have taken their toll on them. As a result, the team gets stuck in the blizzard until the team leaders are healed up.Kakashi and Yamato are injured, but it could’ve been much worse for them. After all, no matter how tired and crappy they feel…Well, at least their kids are always there to patch them up.
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Hatake Kakashi, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Yamato | Tenzou, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura & Sai, Haruno Sakura & Sai & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi & Yamato | Tenzou, Sai & Uzumaki Naruto, Sai & Yamato | Tenzou
Comments: 8
Kudos: 144





	When Putting Yourself In Danger, Don’t Leave Your Students Behind (By Team Kakashi)

“I don’t think they’re coming back.”

Sai was staring out at the snowy landscape through the narrow window. Cold wind blew into his face, since there wasn’t any glass in the window, but he suspected that it’d be even colder outside, with how hard it was snowing. He’d been keeping his eyes trained on the outside, looking for _anything_ that wasn’t snow, but he’d spotted nothing so far.

“What was that, Sai? Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

Sakura and Naruto were sitting on the floor, behind him. There was a fire burning in the small fireplace, and they were both watching it intently, just to make sure that the fire wouldn’t spread – the whole hut was made of wood, after all. Their cloaks were wrapped around them like blankets.

“I said, I don’t think they’ll come back,” Sai repeated. “Kakashi-sensei and Yamato-taichou, I mean.” He turned his head to look at his teammates, because one should make eye contact when communicating bad news. “They’ve been gone for too long. Maybe we should go after them.”

“You think so?” Naruto asked. He sounded anxious – about as anxious as Sai felt.

“They said to wait here, though,” Sakura said. “Don’t you think they can handle it?”

Neither of them even mentioned the fact that they would be directly disobeying orders. It lessened the tight feeling in Sai’s chest just a little. “They’ve been gone for almost an hour,” he said, “and the snowfall’s gotten much heavier in that time. I’ve just got… a bad feeling about it.”

They hadn’t been prepared to fight in the snow. They hadn’t even _planned_ to get to the Land of Iron at all. But they’d been chasing some very persistent missing-nin, and they’d been fast, and by the time they crossed the border to Iron, it was too late to turn back. The rogue nin had stolen a scroll with intel from Konoha messengers, and if Team Kakashi didn’t catch them now, who knew what the information might be used for.

But the team leaders had decided that the rest of the team had to wait somewhere safe. Sai suspected that they would’ve gotten in the way, or that their team leaders might’ve been too worried about the teenagers’ safety during the fight to fully focus – Sai had learned that even very strong people like Kakashi and Yamato sometimes worried about others.

So Yamato had used his Wood-style ninjutsu to quickly create a small hut for them to hide in, and then he and Kakashi had gone after the missing-nin. Sai, Naruto and Sakura had stayed behind. Naruto had grumbled a lot about the order to wait, but he hadn’t disobeyed it – yet.

Sakura wound a lock of her hair around her index finger, the way she did when she was worried and lost in thought. “It _has_ been pretty long, hasn’t it?” she mumbled. “I trust their abilities, but you’re right, Sai. We should go after them.”

Naruto nodded decisively and got up from the floor, quickly putting out the fire. “Let’s go.”

Kakashi and Yamato had left in a north-east direction, so that was the direction that Sai, Naruto and Sakura went. Any tracking skills were completely useless here; footsteps in the snow were immediately erased by more snow, and Sai could only see clearly for a few meters ahead. He made sure to memorize the location of the hut – they might need it again, because he knew that none of them were leaving until they’d found their team leaders.

Sai had been right; it _was_ colder outside than inside the hut. The cloak protected most of him from the snow, but his hair and face quickly became wet with snow, and the wind beat down any attempts that his body made to warm up again. His barely-protected feet were already growing numb. He wasn’t in any danger of frostbite, not after such a short time outside, but it was very uncomfortable. He tried to ignore the way the cold wind swept under his cloak and made his bare abdomen tense up with shivers.

When Sai’s eyelashes started to stick together with snowflakes and he was starting to accept that he wouldn’t see anything but white for a long time, he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. It was far away, and hardly visible, but unmistakeably the red stripes on the bottom of the Konoha cloaks.

“Over there. Look.” He pointed. “Let’s go. Keep your guard up, though; we don’t know what’s going on.” Sai had seen instances where enemy nin had disguised themselves with uniforms that they’d stolen off of corpses. No matter how much he hoped that that wasn’t the case, he couldn’t rule out the possibility.

Naruto and Sakura nodded. As they got closer, it became clearer that there were two people, although it had seemed like one person from farther away. Sai recognized Yamato’s dark hair; he could barely make out Kakashi’s silhouette through the falling snow.

Yamato – or perhaps the person transformed into Yamato – was dragging Kakashi along, one arm slung over his shoulders. He was moving very slowly, occasionally pushed slightly off of his path by the strong wind.

Despite the fact that Sai still hadn’t ruled out the possibility of a trap, his other teammates broke into a sprint as soon as they caught sight of their team leaders. Sai followed them. There was no hostility radiating off of Yamato and Kakashi – it was _definitely_ them.

“Yamato-taichou!” Naruto yelled. “Kakashi-sensei! Are you okay?”

Sai skidded to a halt next to the rest of his team. Yamato blinked slowly at the three of them, as if his brain was still processing. “You were supposed to wait in the hut,” he then said, but his voice lacked any of his usual sternness. Sai suspected that it had something to do with the fact that Yamato’s lips had turned slightly blue. “You could’ve put yourselves in danger.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sakura said. She was speaking quickly, worriedly. “Tell us what happened.”

Yamato gave a very small smile and reached into his backpack. Sai’s hand instinctively darted towards his sword, but Yamato pulled out a scroll instead of a weapon.

“The important scroll,” Naruto said. “You got it back!”

“Yeah.” Yamato nodded, and put the scroll back. “Kakashi got injured during the fight, though.”

“What happened to the missing-nin?” Sai asked.

There was something darkly triumphant in Yamato’s eyes. “Dead. I took care of them.”

Naruto had already slung one of Kakashi’s arms over his shoulders, lifting the weight off of Yamato. Sakura had kneeled down to inspect Kakashi’s leg. It had been mostly hidden by his cloak before, but his leg was entirely wrapped in wood, from his toes all the way up to the top of his upper leg.

“He got caught in an earth ninjutsu,” Yamato explained. “His leg is definitely broken, so I used Wood Style to immobilize it. I think the pain knocked him out.”

“Good thinking,” Sakura hummed. She pressed her hand against the wood. The palm of her hand was glowing green-blue with medical ninjutsu; Sai didn’t know what she was doing, so he wasn’t interested in watching. As she worked, he stepped closer to Yamato and pulled one of his arms over his shoulders, because their captain looked a little unsteady on his feet. He must be exhausted. Yamato didn’t protest.

“His leg is broken in several places.” Sakura took her hand off of Kakashi’s leg and chewed her lip thoughtfully. “I know how to heal it, but it’ll take me half an hour, and then maybe longer before Kakashi-sensei wakes up – we can’t stay out here in the snow that whole time. We need to get back to the hut.”

Yamato nodded, despite the fact that he’d gone a bit paler. “Let’s get going, then.”

Despite Sai’s friendly support, Yamato insisted that he could walk by himself. Naruto and Sakura carried Kakashi, so Sai took to leading the way, taking them straight to the hut. Yamato heaved a deep, relieved sigh when he caught sight of the small wooden hut. Naruto huffed something of a nervous “heh” as well; “I’m glad you’re better with directions than I am, Sai.”

Yamato clapped Sai on the shoulder. “Good work,” he told him. Sai just nodded in response, accepting the compliment, and opened the door to the hut to let everyone in. The hut had unfortunately cooled down in the time that they were gone; Sai quickly went over to the fireplace to get a fire going again.

Sakura and Naruto carefully laid Kakashi down on the floor, propping him half upright against the wall. At Sakura’s request, Yamato undid the Wood-style jutsu that he’d used on Kakashi’s leg, the wood swiftly retreating back into Yamato’s hand. Sakura cut the side of Kakashi’s pants open to examine the fractures, and Sai looked away, instead focusing on not burning the hut down. Kakashi was in good hands, anyway.

Yamato joined Sai not much later, carefully lowering himself to the floor with a sigh. In the light of the fire, his lips looked a more normal color than blue, although he didn’t seem to be shivering any less, and he was still very pale.

He gave Sai a tired smile and started digging around in his backpack. To Sai’s alarm, he pulled out a box of medical supplies.

As he set down the plastic box on the floor, Yamato paused and looked at Sai. “Don’t worry,” he said, because apparently Sai looked worried – when had he started making facial expressions subconsciously? “I sustained some minor wounds during the fight just now. I’m just going to stop the bleeding, because it’ll be a while before Sakura can heal them.” He spoke quietly, probably as not to disturb Sakura. There was no annoyance in his tone about having to explain himself to Sai.

Sai just nodded quietly, not wanting to take any more of Yamato’s time. He watched as Yamato shrugged carefully out of his cloak and inspected a cut on his upper arm. He was all covered in cuts, the tears in his uniform crusted with drying blood. Now that the snow on his cloak was starting to melt, it was clear that the fabric was mostly torn up. Sai felt a little bad for not noticing earlier.

Yamato started to bandage up the cut on his arm, wrapping the bandages over his clothes for convenience’s sake, but his hands were shaking too badly for him to dress his wounds properly. As Sai watched silently, Yamato dropped his bandages and let out a frustrated sigh.

Sai said nothing, because he didn’t want to frustrate Yamato even more – his past superiors had never taken kindly to his offers of help while they were struggling. He just directed his eyes back to the fire, trying to avoid eye contact; “What are you looking at?” had been shouted at him one too many times.

“Uhm, Sai?”

That was Yamato’s voice again, and it was still just as gentle as before despite his growing annoyance. Sai looked up from the fire to see Yamato with a bit of a helpless, sheepish expression on his face – a look that Sai had never seen on a team leader’s face before. It took him a second to reply.

“Yes?”

“Could you help me with something?”

Sai suppressed the urge to remind Yamato that he was Sai’s superior and could also just give him an order. “What is it?”

“Well…” He held out a hand and flexed his fingers, which had gone nearly white from the cold – they hardly moved at all. He shrugged sheepishly. “I’ve realized that it’s not easy to dress wounds when I can barely even feel my fingers. So, please help.”

Most of the wounds were on Yamato’s arms and legs, so they were pretty easy to reach and bandage. As Yamato had said, they were just minor cuts, although some were quite deep and also sticking to his clothes.

As Sai tried to unstick a particularly nasty cut from the collar of Yamato’s flak jacket – a kunai had grazed the side of his neck there, and it would’ve landed right in the middle of Yamato’s Adam’s apple, had it been thrown a few centimeters to the left – he cleared his throat and asked: “Uh, captain? I have a question, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” Sai replied quickly. He considered backpedalling, but Yamato hadn’t shut him down yet, and he was curious. “I’m just… I was wondering how today’s fight was different.”

Yamato looked at him from the corner of his eye, checking Sai’s expression despite the fact that he couldn’t turn his head right now. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, normally, you get out of battles without even a scratch,” Sai clarified, frowning at the cut underneath his fingers. He pulled once more at the fabric of Yamato’s collar, pulling the cut loose from it and making him wince slightly. “Kakashi-sensei regularly gets injured, but you don’t. Today, though, you’re completely covered in cuts. Why?”

“Ah.” Yamato looked away. The look on his face was serious, but he didn’t look at all mad at Sai for questioning his abilities. “It’s because of Kakashi.”

“How is that?”

“Like I said, the missing-nin trapped him in an Earth ninjutsu,” he said. “They’d planned to finish him off while he was immobilized. I managed to prevent that, although I took some hits in the process.” He stared into the fire as Sai taped some gauze to the side of his neck. “Those kinds of situations are different when you’re in ANBU, so I get it if it’s hard for you to understand. In ANBU, you’re taught that you need to trust that your teammate can fend for themselves, because the mission is more important than your worry for them.”

Sai smiled, because he was starting to understand what Yamato was getting at. “Yet Kakashi-sensei taught us that our team is more important.”

“Yeah,” Yamato replied. “He’s been saying that since he was your age. All the hardcore ANBU thought he was crazy.” He huffed a laugh. “He taught me the same thing. Obviously, I didn’t think he was crazy, otherwise he’d be dead right now.”

Sai glanced over at Kakashi, who was still slumped against the wall, Sakura working hard to heal his leg. His cloak wasn’t damaged at all – none of the kunai or shuriken had even touched him.

“Amazing,” Sai whispered, although he didn’t remember consciously making the decision to say that.

Yamato gave him a questioning look from the corner of his eye. “What?”

“It’s amazing,” Sai repeated. “How you made sure that no harm came to Kakashi-sensei, I mean.”

“I’m… taking that compliment, then, I guess.”

“Good.” Sai pulled the collar of Yamato’s cloak straight. “I think that was the last of your wounds, by the way.”

Yamato nodded and pulled his cloak tighter around himself. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Sai replied, and he meant it.

The hut was finally starting to warm up a little, despite the wind and snow that still occasionally blew in through the glass-less windows. Naruto was standing in front of the windows to keep watch, but he didn’t seem to mind the cold much – his cloak was draped over Kakashi like a blanket.

The room was silent, except for the roaring of the wind outside and the soft crackling of the fire. Well, until that silence was broken by a sharp gasp and a groan.

Kakashi bolted upright, his Sharingan wildly scanning the room for threats, one hand grabbing for his weapons pouch on reflex. It occurred to Sai that he’d probably lost consciousness in the middle of a battle – he had to be pretty disoriented right now.

Sai left the fire for what it was and kneeled down next to Kakashi. “Kakashi-sensei,” he said. “We’re back at the hut. The missing-nin are dead. You’re safe here.”

Kakashi’s eyes finally settled on Sai’s face, and then flicked over to count the rest of his teammates. His right hand no longer reached for a kunai; instead, it balled into a fist next to his injured leg, his fingers white with the effort.

“Tenzou,” he began, pausing when his voice cracked. “Are… Are you okay?”

“Perfectly fine,” said a warm voice from next to Sai. Yamato was kneeling on the floor as well, and for once, he didn’t seem annoyed that Kakashi had called him by the wrong code name. “You don’t need to worry about me, Kakashi.”

Kakashi looked him over, as well as he could when his eyes kept squeezing shut in pain. Once he’d apparently confirmed that Yamato was telling the truth, he closed his eyes and exhaled a shaky breath through gritted teeth. “Good,” he replied, barely louder than a whisper. “I’m glad.” He seemed finished with this conversation; it surprised Sai once more that he appeared completely disinterested in whether or not their mission had been a success.

Kakashi was breathing heavily, his chest hitching with shudders of pain. Sai recognized the breathing technique – he himself had occasionally used it during ANBU missions, trying to suppress pain so that no one would see it. Sai himself had never broken a leg, let alone in multiple places, but he could tell by Kakashi’s reaction that it had to hurt a lot.

Caught off guard by that sudden stinging empathy, Sai turned to Sakura. “How much longer until you’ve finished healing him?” he asked her. He tried to sound calm, because it was best to stay calm in front of a wounded ally, but he couldn’t keep the urgency from his voice.

Sakura didn’t take her eyes off of her work. “About fifteen more minutes,” she replied. “I couldn’t heal the bigger fractures without healing the smaller ones first, so this is the most difficult part. I’ll need to concentrate for it, so please give me some space. You, too, Naruto.”

Naruto, who was looking over Sakura’s shoulder to see what she was doing, sheepishly took a step back.

“You don’t have to worry,” she continued with a small smile. “He’ll be okay. I’ll make sure of it.” She glanced up briefly to give Kakashi a reassuring look; “Just hold on a little longer, sensei.”

Kakashi stuck his thumb up at her, despite the fact that his hand shook. “Sure will,” he replied. He opened his right eye to look at Naruto, then Sai, then Yamato. “Sakura’s right; she’s got this,” he continued. “The three of you should go rest. Especially you, Tenzou-- Yamato, I mean. You did well, today.”

“Thank you, Kakashi.” Yamato nodded towards Naruto and Sai. “Come on, you heard them. Let’s leave Sakura to her work.”

Naruto continued keeping watch through the window, and Sai returned to his spot at the fire. Yamato sat down next to the fire as well, leaning himself comfortably against the wall. They both stayed quiet, as Sakura had asked them to let her focus. Not long after that, Yamato’s head thunked gently against the wall behind him. He was asleep, snoring softly.

Under other circumstances, Sai might’ve silently disapproved of a team leader falling asleep during a mission, but Yamato was clearly exhausted and Naruto was keeping watch, anyway. Yamato was still shivering as well, so Sai surrendered his cloak and draped it over him.

Sai stared into the fire. On the other side of the room, Kakashi clearly tried to keep quiet as Sakura healed the last fractures in his leg. Every now and then, a choked groan escaped from him. Sai kept his back to him, just to give him as much privacy as possible. It was bad enough to try, and fail, to suppress your pain; it was worse to know that there were witnesses to your struggle.

Eventually, the crackling of the fire and the howling of the wind outside overtook the sounds of Kakashi’s labored breathing. Not much later, Kakashi walked over and sat down next to Yamato. He held out his hands to warm them by the fire. His hands still trembled, but the tension had disappeared from his body.

Sai looked up at him. “Are you feeling better, Kakashi-sensei?”

“Yeah,” Kakashi replied. He raised a hand to rub at his face. “Just really tired.”

Sai nodded. “I understand,” he said. “It costs lots of energy to endure painful things.”

“Sai is right, sensei,” Sakura said, sitting down on the floor next to Sai. “You should probably rest before we head back home.”

“Oh, it’s fine, really. I can… I can handle it,” Kakashi replied, stifling a yawn in the middle of his sentence.

Sakura scoffed. “Somehow, I don’t believe you, sensei.”

“How rude,” Kakashi murmured at her, but he didn’t really seem offended.

Since Sakura’s approach wasn’t working, Sai decided to help her out. “What Sakura means, is that it’s probably a bad idea to go out in this blizzard,” he said, gesturing at the window, outside which snow was swirling around violently. “And Yamato-taichou is already sleeping, too – it’d be a shame to wake him up. So if we’re going to stay here a little longer anyway, then you might as well get some rest, Kakashi-sensei.”

He was being a _little_ manipulative here, but he figured that that wasn’t a bad thing if he was manipulating his team leader into getting some well-needed rest. Kakashi raised a questioning eyebrow at Sai, but then apparently decided that he didn’t care enough and pulled his cloak tighter around himself.

“Fine, then,” he replied, closing his eyes. “The scroll is in safe hands, so it’s not an urgent matter to get it back to Konoha, anyway. Just warn me if something happens, okay?”

“Sure thing,” Sai said, unable to hold back a self-satisfied smile. Suddenly remembering something, he turned to Sakura. “Hey, Sakura? Could you heal Yamato-taichou, please? He didn’t want to disturb you earlier, but he got hurt during the fight, too.”

She nodded, and scooted over to lay a faintly glowing hand on Yamato’s shoulder. The contact was light enough not to wake him. As she worked, Kakashi propped himself up against the wall behind him. He dozed off almost immediately, comfortably sitting cross-legged and showing no signs that his leg had ever been broken at all.

After a minute or two, Sakura sat back and smiled. “There. All healed up.” She stretched her arms in front of her; “Well, that was intense.”

“Do you need to rest as well?” Sai asked her. “It’s okay if you do that – Naruto and I will make sure that nothing happens.”

“Yeah!” Naruto added, whisper-shouting as not to wake their team leaders up. “We’ve got this, Sakura!”

Sakura smiled and wiped her hair out of her face. “I trust you,” she replied. “Thanks, guys.”

“Just one condition,” Naruto said, turning to Sai with a pout. “Sai, _please_ let me sit by the fire for a bit. It’s super cold over here.”

And so Sai stood at the window, staring out at the snowy landscape. He looked for anything that _wasn’t_ snow, but spotted nothing – and that was great, because that meant that his teammates were safe.

**Author's Note:**

> For some reason, I’ve always really liked stories that take place during cold weather. It’s always so comfy and cosy! And what better cold weather than a good ol’ snowstorm? idk, it’s just one of my favorite things, so this is really a write-what-you-want-to-read sort of fic lol. And there is also a serious shortage of fics from Sai’s POV, so I thought I’d contribute :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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